Finding the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg

The childrens’ story teaches us about poor farmer who one day discovered in the nest of his pet goose, a golden egg. At first he thought it was a trick and just when he was about to throw it away, he thought better of it and had it valued. It proved to be a 24 carat golden egg. The farmer could not believe his luck and this luck seemed endless when day after day, the goose laid a golden egg every morning. He becomes fabuously wealthy and it all seems too good to be true. But with his wealth came greed and impatiece. Then one day he could no longer wait for the next morning and in the spur of the moment he dedided to slaughter the goose so that he could get his hands on all the golden eggs at once. However, when he opened the goose, he found it to be empty. There were no golden eggs and to make matters worse, no way of getting any golden eggs in the future.

Stephen Covey refers to this fable when he talks about production and the capacity to produce. The egg is the product and the goose is the capacity to produce. These two need to be kept in balance in order to be effective. Every employer is in business to be effective in either the product produced or service rendered. If on the one hand, one adopts a pattern of focusing on the golden egg only and thereby neglecting the goose, one will soon be without the capacity to produce or serve. On the other hand, if one only takes care of the goose with no aim toward the golden egg one would soon be out of business due to ineffectiveness. The key to this “dilema” lies in the balance between the ability to produce/render a service and the product/service itself.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, effectiveness (as opposed to efficiency) is about people. In all companies, the people are key to effectiveness, or the capacity to produce; the egg is the product/service; the farmer is you, the employer. There must be numerous cases where the above fable can be applied and thought about – Ramatex being just one of them.  We at The MAC do not have geese for sale that lay golden eggs but we know how these “proverbial geese”  think and how balance can be maintained.

Is There a Doctor in the House?

It is Monday morning, the weekend after payday, and a “flock of geese” have not reported for duty, a regular occurrence that seriously affects your product/service. It is, however, a losing battle because each and every one of the “geese” will produce a medical certificate that has legitimately booked them off for two or three days, depending on the seriousness of what could be a bout of “bird flu”. Having calculated the cost of loss of production/service this rate of absenteeism has on your business, brings you to a point of not wanting to accept the medical certificates as legitimate any more, or wanting to refer the employees in question to a doctor of your choice with expenses borne by you. Both options, however, bring more headache and expenses. What are you to do?

The answer lies in managing the situation rather than fighting it. As a businessperson you could not legitimately question the diagnosis of the doctor (unless you are one yourself) and would have to accept the medical certificate at face value. By law, the employee is entitled to paid medical sick leave and only needs to produce a medical certificate if :

• The employee is absent for two or more consecutive days
• The employee is booked off for medical reasons for two separate days within in a period of 8 weeks.

The good news is that there are ways and means to manage this situation. In the first instance, the meticulous record keeping of paid sick leave days granted to the respective employees will be the first step in the right direction. Once an employee has utilised the statutory paid sick leave entitlement within the statutory period, stop paying for sick leave applications/submissions. I personally have seen miraculous recovery of employees, who a month previously was on deathbed, the moment the source of income dried up. Secondly, try to establish whether there is a pattern of absenteeism for each employee who habitually absents him or herself; e.g. every Friday/Monday after payday, every day before or after a public holiday, every first Wednesday of the month, etc. Once this pattern becomes obvious, communicate this finding with the respective employee and address the attendance (or lack thereof) rather than the reason for the absenteeism.  Also, and importantly so, inform the employee that should the pattern of absenteeism continue you would not accept the medical certificate as a legitimate excuse for his/her absence and the days of absence will be without pay.

Despite the initial doubt of the legitimacy of such action, your decision can be justified especially where the employee had been forewarned of your intentions but equally important so, because common law protects you in this instance. The common law is the underlying body of rules developed and handed down over the ages by (mainly) judicial bodies. We must keep in mind that the common law rules were developed in a particular historical milieu. The prevailing idiom during common law’s formative years was “master and servant” with the accompanying notion of subordination. Amongst other rules developed, the common law states that one of the employee’s duties in an employment relationship is to “enter and remain in service”. This duty lies at the heart of the employer’s power to discipline employees for absence from the workplace. It is also the basis of the no-work-no-pay principle.

Absenteeism, whether legitimate or illegitimate, is a huge expense for the employer and directly impacts on the capacity to produce. The rate of absenteeism is often also a reflection of the morale of the employees at work. In order to remain effective a balance must exist between the production/service and capacity to produce/serve. One needs to be careful to put the blame on only the goose for not producing golden eggs; maybe it is the environment, which proves not to be conducive to lay golden eggs.

Feedback as Regards the Revised Labour Act

I have had the opportunity to speak to the Secretariat of the NEF (Namibian Employers’ Federation) on the topic of the implementation of the revised Labour Act, which, according to earlier speculation, is to be enacted on July 1, 2006. The following is the gist of latest developments

• The Act is currently being “cleansed” in that wording used in the current version is being reworded to give more definite meaning and clarity; e.g. 24 continuous working days annual leave will be re-worded to read should read as “four working weeks” annual leave. (The NEF has this piece confirmed in writing by the Minister)
• Once the Act has been cleansed, it must be referred to the Labour Advisory Council for their scrutiny and the NEF feels that all parties will need at least two weeks proof-reading time to make sure everything is finally correct.
• Once the LAC has “okayed” the content of the cleansed Act, it must be referred to the National Assembly where the Minister of Labour and Social Welfare will table it before Parliament.
• Parliament refers the Act to the National Council for scrutiny and debate and only once the Act has passed this stage, is it returned to the National Assembly again.
• Providing everything runs smoothly, it may, then, be enacted.
• There is also not clarity whether the infrastructure is in place to deal with the Act, i.e. whether the Office of the Labour Commissioner is ready to deal with the dispute resolution process.
• Opinion has also been raised (although not by the NEF) that the cleansing of the Act will raise so many amendments that it might become too cumbersome to constantly have to refer to the amendments and then back to the Act that it might be easier just to rewrite the Act in its totality.
• The task-force responsible for the implementation of the Act has, due to other commitments, not been able to meet for the last two months
• The Namibian delegation (government, employer, and employees) will leave for the annual ILO Convention at the end of May and will only return mid-June. The Permanent Secretary and this year the Deputy Minister, Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, will be leading the delegation.

The official date for implementation is still July 1, 2006, however, bearing in mind all the above factors it seems to be unrealistic. The NEF have addressed a letter to the PS of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare urgently asking for confirmation of a date, so that industry can make the required plans. The moment the NEF has a response, the message will be passed on.

Whether the Act will still be enacted by July 1, 2006 is an open debate. We, at the MAC, however, are of the opinion, that the date may have to be postponed once more.

A Gentle Word on Behalf of The MAC

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